Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help! (Updated)

5 6 Methods For Getting Old Programs To Run On New Computers

This article is an updated and improved version of  Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help!, a “reader question” article that has proven quite popular. It seems quite a few people want their 12-year old, 16-bit, Gen 1 games to play on latest generation, 64-bit machines, (I don’t blame them) but it doesn’t always work. Here are some tips for solving the problem. They are in the appropriate order, IMHO. (These work in Vista as well.)

1) Turn off “hardware acceleration”. A common cause of errors and “playability issues” is the old games’ use (or lack of) of hardware “acceleration”, which is referring to the “video card”, or more accurately, the graphics driver. Most graphics drivers allow you to turn off the hardware acceleration (which may resolve your issue).
Click Start in the lower left corner of Windows.
Click Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, click Personalization, click Display Settings, and then click Advanced Settings.
Click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change Settings.Move the Hardware Acceleration slider until it is one notch to the right of None. This is the basic acceleration setting.
Click OK twice, and then close the window.
Restart the computer.

[you can also get there via the graphic adapter’s Properties in Device Manager]

[Note: Change Settings will be disabled if the graphics card drivers do not support disabling hardware acceleration. You may need to check the video card manufacturer’s website, and download the latest driver.]

2) You may need set the troublesome games to launch in “Compatibility Mode”, and tell them to run under Windows XP SP2. This article, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/compatibility-tricks-for-old-programs-new-machines/ shows you how. The “Compat Mode” section is about half way down the page.

3) You might need to try repeating Step 2, but this time install directly to your C:\ drive (by default, Windows will install programs to C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files(x86) folder) using the “Custom install” option during set up. This will eliminate some of the Permissions issues that keep older programs from running correctly.

4) You may also – if the game is old enough – need to turn off all but one CPU core. This is called “setting the affinity”. Also see, Compatibility Tricks for Old Programs, New Machines. If this resolves your issue, the article includes a download for a tool to make this setting ‘stick’.

5) For really old, DOS-based games, install DOSBox. DOSBox is a great tool, especially for old games. I would suggest reading the tutorial, here: http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxShortcuts#Windows

6) Though I view this as a bit of a ‘last resort’, you can install a “virtual machine” and run the game in there.
* If you have the Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate edition of Windows 7, you can download XP Mode – which is really Virtual PC – for free. If you have other editions of Windows, grab Virtual PC 2007 from the same place.
* Perhaps a better alternative is using VMWare Server (free), from www.vmware.com/products/server. I have read that the VMWare handles the hardware acceleration better.

In both cases, you’ll have to supply the copy of (old) Windows yourself, and install it (into the “virtual machine”) from scratch.

… I hate to say, but it is possible that you may try all these things and get unsatisfactory results. I keep an old Pentium II machine (Windows 98) around just for playing those old games (which I wouldn’t dream of connecting to the Internet!). The games play best on the hardware/OS of their day. You might need to do the same. Or.. say goodbye to your old friends.

Progress!

Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.

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Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help!

Attention: I have posted an updated and more complete version of this article, here: Windows 7 – Old Games Won’t Play.. Help! (Updated)

Reader Asks For Help After Installing Windows 7

Q: I had Windows XP and Windows 7 was recently installed. I hate Windows 7. My kids can’t play their games. Something about hardware acceleration driver. I want to know if I can switch to my XP. I do have the 7 recovery CDs that I made when I got the computer. Is there an easy way of switching? I’m not a tech person. I do not know alot about computers, but I do love and miss my XP. Can you help me?

A: Dear Reader,
Unless the person who upgraded you to Win 7 made a full backup of the XP (such as a “disk image”) before they installed, then no — there is no “easy way” back to XP. You would have to format your hard drive, install XP, install all your programs, and then copy back all your data. (Maybe.. that’s what you mean by “7 recovery CD’s”? Did you run Norton Ghost? Or, Acronis True Image?)
But XP is obsolete, not for sale any more*, not terribly secure, and no longer fully supported by Microsoft (and soon to be unsupported totally). It really isn’t the thing to do to “go back”…

Why don’t we focus on getting the issue resolved so that your kids can play their games? There are several approaches.
1) The “hardware acceleration” is referring to the “video card”, or more accurately, the graphics driver. Most graphics drivers allow you to turn off the hardware acceleration (which should resolve your issue).
Click Start in the lower left corner of Windows.
Click Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, click Personalization, click Display Settings, and then click Advanced Settings.
Click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change Settings. [Note: Change Settings will be disabled if the graphics card drivers do not support disabling hardware acceleration.]
Move the Hardware Acceleration slider until it is one notch to the right of None. This is the basic acceleration setting.
Click OK twice, and then close the window.
Restart the computer.

[you can also get there via the graphic adapter’s Properties in Device Manager]

The path in your address bar is: Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display > Change Display Settings > Advanced settings.

2) You may need set the troublesome games to launch in “Compatibility Mode”, and tell them to run under Windows XP SP2. This article, https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/compatibility-tricks-for-old-programs-new-machines/ shows you how. The Compat Mode section is about half way down the page.

3) You may also – if the game is old enough – need to turn off a CPU core (or, now, cores), called “setting the affinity”. Also see, Compatibility Tricks for Old Programs, New Machines.

*see Comments

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Multicore Computers and Old Programs*

How To Get Old Programs To Work On New Computers

I hope you are all enjoying a holiday respite. I am taking it easy, and re-posting a How To tip from mid 2007. While I discuss games, the advice applies to all programs.

So you went out and bought a new computer — congratulations! You got a good one, too: it has everything, including a dual-core processor. You have installed your favorite programs, and by that, I mean your games — great!

There’s just one catch — now some of your games misbehave and act like they’re in hyperdrive, everything moves at warp speed, and instead of three bloodthirsty hobgoblins, there’s thirty. You’re getting killed faster than you can press your “S” key… and that isn’t any fun! Or worse, the game will just freeze in mid-play.

I first noticed this on Battlefield 1942 (the whole series, actually). And then I noticed it on Call of Duty, but not so much on Call of Duty 2. And it was really bad on Quake. It became clear to me that the older the game, the more susceptible to this un-play-ability it was.

If this has happened to you, the odds are good you have a dual, triple, or quad core CPU. These processors weren’t available when these programs were written, and so the programmers didn’t factor in their ability to process multiple “threads” — basically what’s happening is these new processors are making two (or four) ‘events’ occur at the same time, where they are meant to happen one at a time.

But don’t worry… you need not say goodbye to your favorite games!

Tip of the day: Getting older programs to run smoothly on a new machine is just a couple of clicks away. Some of your programs are going to require you to “turn off” one of the ‘cores’ before it will run right.
To do this, launch the program and let it load (but don’t start using/playing it yet).
Now launch the Windows Task Manager by doing the “three fingered salute”, combination-press the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys (or Start >Run and enter “taskmgr” no quotes).
Click on (select) the Processes tab.

This shows a list of all the running processes on your machine, and how much RAM and CPU cycles are being used by each process. I have launched Battlefield 1942, which shows as the top (most recent) process.
* Right-click on the app that you want to adjust, in our case “BF 1942.exe”.

For some reason, the program-to-processor linkage is called “Affinity“, so from the menu of choices that appear due to our right-clicking, we want to click on (select) “Set Affinity”.
If you have a dual-core CPU, two CPU’s will be shown and checked, A quad-core, four.. We want to uncheck all but one… as shown below.

With luck, now your program will run like it should. Unfortunately, you must do this each time you want to launch your game/program. Sometimes, the game manufacturer’s will issue a “patch” that will mitigate this issue. Visit their website and look for downloadable “patches” and/or “updates”.

For really old programs and games, you may need to set them to run in something called “compatibility mode“. Mostly these will be items you have left over from your Windows 98 (or Me) days… but if you’re running Vista, you may need to do this for programs that ran fine on XP. Right-click on the program’s shortcut (desktop) icon and select (click) Properties. Now click on the Compatibility tab, as shown below.

Use the drop-down arrow to select the operating system you would like the program to run in as if it were installed. Here I am telling a Vista machine to run a XP environment, but you may need to set it to “Windows 98″. A little experimentation will determine your best choice.

Today’s free download: There’s a small app called Prio that allows you to “Save” priority and affinity, so you won’t have to set them at each launch.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Troubleshooting Installing Programs On Win 7

How To Get Older Programs To Install In The New Windows 7

I have been using the various beta releases of Microsoft’s new OS since it was released to the public in January and I have reported it to be a remarkably smooth performer (to see all my Win 7 articles, click Windows 7 articles).

Currently I am putting Win7 x64 (64-bit) through its paces as I believe it will be Win7 that ushers us all into the age of 64-bit computing. And I wrote about my near-flawless transition (see, A Tech’s First Impression of Windows 7 64-bit).

Yesterday, my undreamed of smooth ride came up against the cold hard potholes of reality when I tried to install a Logitec QuickCam webcam. No matter what, I could not get my QC Express to function properly on Win7 x64. So i plugged in a different webcam. (btw, I had no such trouble on the 32-bit.)
Now, this is in no way a critique! Windows 7 is still a beta, and won’t be released to the manufacturer’s and public for weeks and weeks yet.

But it the experience did inspire me to tell you, Dear Reader, the steps you can take to get programs installed on Win 7, should they prove resistant and/or fail altogether.

1) The first thing to do is, you will need access to the setup.exe, so for downloads you want to Save — and not “Run” — the download.
(note: this is a good habit to get in. Download any executable and then scan it for viruses before telling it to run!)

2) Double-click the setup (aka “install”) and let it run. Usually it will install just fine. But if it doesn’t, don’t panic. Close out any windows and prepare to try again fresh.

3) Right-click on the installer, and select “Troubleshoot compatibility”.

Windows 7 will analyze why the install failed, and a window will open with a click-able option for trying again with new settings.
Just click that and the installer will go again — and usually this will do the trick!
(Often an install will fail simply because Windows 7 isn’t on the installer’s whitelist of approved OSes. How could it be? Win 7 wasn’t written yet!)

4) Should that second try fail – as in the case of my Logitec software/drivers – you can try again, this time being a little ‘commanding’. Again, right-click on the setup.exe but this time select “Properties”.

A new window will open. Click on the “Compatibility” tab, and place a check in the checkbox for “Run this program in compatibility mode”, and use the drop-down arrow to select which OS to trick the installer into thinking it’s working with. Make sure “Run as administrator” is checked.
(Programs of a rather recent vintage should accept Vista, and for older programs you might wish to try “Windows XP”.)

Now close the Properties window and double-click on the setup.exe and launch the install again. (As they say, third time’s the charm.)

Now the program should be installed and functioning properly. If not, you may have to do what I did and just try something else — in my case a LifeCam VX-1000.

Copyright 2007-9 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Will Old Programs Run On Leopard?– Reader Questions*

Today I am going to answer a few questions submitted by readers, in the Q’s and their A’s format.

Q: Will the programs I have on my old Mac run on a new “Leopard” system?
A: There are enough differences in the new OS X 10.5 that some programs may need to be replaced with the latest versions that are “Leopard-compatible” (Norton AV often needs this, for example) to run at their best. The keyword is “may”: most programs will work just fine once you visit Apple Update.
Please note— if you intend to migrate your programs and data from an old machine to the new Leopard machine, make sure you have updated all the software (programs) on the old machine before initiating the migration. Leopard will/can refuse to accept programs that aren’t current.

Q: I am thinking about buying a new iMac and I was told Apple runs on Intel circuits now. Does this mean I would be vulnerable to viruses, worms and spyware like Windows? What security programs would I need?
A: While it is true that Apple runs on the same type of “circuits” as Windows PC’s now, it is not your hardware that is vulnerable to malware and hackers, but the lines of software “code” (programming) that make up your applications/programs.
Now to the second part of your question… The lines of code that make up the Mac operating system (the most recent being OSX 10.5 “Leopard”) are not currently being targeted by the bad guys.. simply because there’s too few machines running it (and the ones that are do not contain credit card number databases). However, some of the programs you would have on your Mac are being targeted for exploits– QuickTime (a media format/player) and the Safari browser, notably. (Neither of which you need, btw.)
And now the last part: as things stand, today, if you are running a fully updated Leopard machine, and the firewall is on, you really don’t need a “protection program”. That statement may not be true this afternoon, or next week, or next month (for future readers, this was written 09/16/08 ) and so you may, for peace of mind, want to install the Norton Internet Security 2008 package*.

Today’s free download: I’m keeping with a Macintosh theme today, and so today’s app is for Apple users. I don’t want it said that I never think of you guys! Watch TV on your iMac with Miro, a C/Net Editor’s Choice. Description: “Democracy Player is a free and open source internet TV/video podcast application, with a beautiful, easy to use interface. You can subscribe to any Internet TV channel, including video podcasts, video RSS feeds, bittorrent feeds, and video blogs. A built-in Channel Guide lists hundreds of channels of all types, all free to subscribe to. Browse videos, download, and watch fullscreen– all in the same application.”

* Folks, please don’t write to tell me “Norton is evil”. Read the reviews for NIS 2008. It may open your eyes.

Copyright 2007-8 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved. post to jaanix

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Run old programs on a new machine

So you went out and bought a new computer — congratulations! You got a good one, too: it has everything, including a dual-core processor. You have installed your favorite programs, and by that, I mean your games–great!
There’s just one catch — now some of your games misbehave and act like they’re in hyperdrive, everything moves at warp speed, and instead of three bloodthirsty hobgoblins, there’s thirty. You’re getting killed faster than you can press your S key… and that isn’t any fun!
I first noticed it on Battlefield 1942 (the whole series, actually). And then I noticed it on Call of Duty, but not so much on Call of Duty 2. And it was really bad on Quake. It became clear to me that the older the game, the more susceptible to this unplayability it was. 

If this has happened to you, the odds are good you have a dual-core CPU. These processors weren’t available when these programs were written, and so the writers didn’t factor in their ability to process multiple “threads” — basically what’s happening is these new processors are making two (or four) ‘events’ occur at the same time, where they are meant to happen one at a time. But don’t worry… you need not say goodbye to your favorite games!

Tip of the day: Getting older programs to run smoothly on a new machine is just a couple of clicks away. Some of your programs are going to require you to “turn off” one of the ‘cores’ before it will run right. To do this, launch the program and let it load (but don’t start using/playing it yet). Now launch the Windows Task Manager by doing the “three fingered salute”, combination-press the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys (or Start >Run and enter “taskmgr” no quotes). Click on (select) the Processes tab.

This shows a list of all the running processes on your machine, and how much RAM and CPU cycles are being used by each process. I have launched Battlefield 1942, which shows as the top (most recent) process. Right-click on the app that you want to adjust, in our case “BF 1942”.

(To see this larger, click on it) For some reason, the program-to-processor linkage is called “affinity”, so from the menu of choices that appear due to our right-clicking, we want to click on (select) “Set Affinity”. When you have a dual-core CPU, two CPU’s will be shown and checked. We want to uncheck one… as shown below.

Now your program will run like it should. Unfortunately, you must do this each time you want to launch your game/program. Sometimes, the game manufacturer’s will issue a “patch” that will mitigate this issue. Visit their website and look for downloadable “patches” and/or “updates”.

For really old programs and games, you may need to set them to run in something called “compatibility mode“. Mostly these will be items you have left over from your Windows 98 (or Me) days… but if you’re running Vista, you may need to do this for programs that ran fine on XP.

Right-click on the program’s shortcut (desktop) icon and select (click) Properties. Now click on the Compatibility tab, as shown below.

Use the drop-down arrow to select the operating system you would like the program to run in as if it were installed. Here I am telling a Vista machine to run a XP environment, but you may need to set it to “Windows 98”. A little experimentation will determine your best choice.

Today’s free link: There’s a program similar to the 3D Google Earth, except it is focused in space and on the stars (and other celestial bodies). Visit nearby galaxies or fly around the moon with Celestia.

Copyright 2007 © Tech Paul, All Rights Reserved

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